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The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » Shuffled not Stirred » » Tamariz or Redford (33 Likes) Printer Friendly Version

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Doctor D
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Quote:
On Jan 27, 2023, DJ Trix wrote:
Best stacked deck?

A genuinely random shuffled deck that you memorize.

No one will be able to identify your stack.

This has been said, and debunked, countless times.
A well designed stack is undetectable and has built-in advantages/properties to make use of. Memorising a random order without said properties is simply doing yourself a disservice.

Of course, moreso than the appearance of the order, it's the handling of the deck that can and should disguise the fact that it is stacked. False shuffles, cuts and a casual handling are key here.
1tepa1
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Unless you are going to be dealing the cards face up on the table one by one, no spectator is going to notice whether your stack is in si stebbins or Tamariz or redford. I have read magician saying they don't use stebbins because a spectator would figure it is in order, but in my experience, this will never happen unless you are doing a trick where you need to deal the cards face up one by one on the table. Of course this is precisely what many tricks that use full memorized decks require, so these kinds of tricks you would not do with stebbins anyway since it is not designed to be a memorized deck. But the point is that if you are using Tamariz, redford or aronson stack, no spectator is able to recognize that order as not being " a genuinely shuffled deck". So there is just no benefit for using a genuinely shuffled deck, unless you are performing for other magicians who would recognize a Tamariz stack order for example. But even so, no matter what order you use, even fully random, magicians will know when you are using a stack since no matter what the stack is, the principles you will be using with it are known to most magicians.
Chris K
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Quote:
On Jan 6, 2023, Nikodemus wrote:
I'm not sure what system Patrick Redford recommends to learn his stack. It's important to realise that you can use whatever memorisation system works for you. The most commonly used is the Master Memory System.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system

The Memory Book by Harry Lorayne covers this along with lots of other useful ideas.


Redford recommends a variant of the major system (p. 66, "Temporarily Out of Order"). Technically, he's more combining the Major System with a peg system, if we are being accurate (you can read about this very thing in the link from Nikodemus). I personally liked the peg system Lax used in his Mnemonica release, which is more of a pure peg system. My reason is purely personal, the major system is what I used for numbers, pegs are generally what I use for objects.

Harry Lorayne has done a pretty decent job of collecting the memory systems of other people into his books, I agree.
DJ Trix
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Quote:
On Jan 27, 2023, Doctor D wrote:
Quote:
On Jan 27, 2023, DJ Trix wrote:
Best stacked deck?

A genuinely random shuffled deck that you memorize.

No one will be able to identify your stack.

This has been said, and debunked, countless times.
A well designed stack is undetectable and has built-in advantages/properties to make use of. Memorising a random order without said properties is simply doing yourself a disservice.

Of course, moreso than the appearance of the order, it's the handling of the deck that can and should disguise the fact that it is stacked. False shuffles, cuts and a casual handling are key here.


You cannot debunk a subjective perspective. Its an opinion. I don't do any stack specific work. Thus I prefer a shuffled memorized deck because other people in the know cannot immediately detect a memdeck is in play. I guess it depends who your audience is and what your goals are. But I affirm my conviction. Create your own.
Nikodemus
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I think "people in the know" (aka Magicians) are likely to recognise/suspect a stack-based method by how the effect is structured and the deck is handled [as already mentioned by Doctor D] rather than recognising a specific sequence of cards.
Alfred Borden
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That's a really interesting discussion.
Matt G
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"I got caught doing a double lift once, so I don't do any tricks that require a double lift anymore. In fact, I got called out for using sleight of hand, so I just decided to do nothing but self-working tricks."

That's what it sounds like to me when someone says they won't use Redford or Mnemonica or Aronson (or even Si Stebbins if you're bold) as their memdeck because they're worried other people might recognize it. Yes, there is still some absolutely incredible stack-independent magic to be done, just like there is if you decided to never use sleight of hand again, but you're strongly limiting yourself while, imo, ignoring the crux of the issue -- why you got caught in the first place.

With that being said, you might shuffle randomly and discover some amazing properties from your own shuffled order. I highly doubt it'll be as jam-packed with features as Redford/Tamariz/Aronson, and you will have to discover those features all on your own instead of building on the discoveries of the community, but if that's your cup of tea then more power to ya.
gbabbits
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Quote:
On Jan 28, 2023, DJ Trix wrote:
Quote:
On Jan 27, 2023, Doctor D wrote:
Quote:
On Jan 27, 2023, DJ Trix wrote:
Best stacked deck?

A genuinely random shuffled deck that you memorize.

No one will be able to identify your stack.

This has been said, and debunked, countless times.
A well designed stack is undetectable and has built-in advantages/properties to make use of. Memorising a random order without said properties is simply doing yourself a disservice.

Of course, moreso than the appearance of the order, it's the handling of the deck that can and should disguise the fact that it is stacked. False shuffles, cuts and a casual handling are key here.


You cannot debunk a subjective perspective. Its an opinion. I don't do any stack specific work. Thus I prefer a shuffled memorized deck because other people in the know cannot immediately detect a memdeck is in play. I guess it depends who your audience is and what your goals are. But I affirm my conviction. Create your own.


I wasn't reading it as debunking a perspective; I read this as "by overall utility, it's been shown that a stack that's been constructed with built-in features such as spellable 4-of-a-kinds and 5-seat poker hands is more useful than a randomly shuffled deck."

However, given the sheer number of possible deck orders there are, it's totally reasonable to assume a randomly shuffled deck could also end up with one ore more "built-in" features.

In my personal opinion, it comes down to the performer. I don't do any routines that deal poker hands, and the only 4 of a kind I've ever really produced is the Aces, and the routines I've done that with have the spectator shuffling. So, a randomly shuffled deck memorized -- in this case -- would be just as effective as a constructed stack like Mnemonica or Aronson. If, however, I were to sit at a table and do those types of routines where I spell out the names of suits to produce the aces, well, Aronson's stack with his Aces Awry trick might work better. 100% based on needs, and what you're after as a magician.
gbabbits
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This thread, while it started out back in 2017, heavily aligns with where I'm at in my journey right now. I've read through Mnemonica cover-to-cover, but haven't memorized the stack yet. I've also skimmed through Aronson's A Stack to Remember (and other books), but again, haven't memorized the stack. And no joke, but Redford's Sleightly Out of Order is sitting on my desk right in front of me.

My plan was to learn Mnemonica by the end of March of this year, but now I'm starting to wonder if Redford's stack might be better... for what it's worth, the majority of memdeck work I've seen has been fairly stack-independent. The more stack-dependent routines are often the tricks that can produce a pair or 4-of-a-kind, or deal a poker hand. I don't do a lot of those routines as it is, but if I have them at my disposal, I could practically do them impromptu.

Thanks to this thread, which has some pretty great info in it, now I think I'll read through Redford's book first and decide which stack I want to learn. I've already decided on Mnemonica over Aronson's, so we'll see.
Matt G
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Quote:
On Feb 16, 2023, gbabbits wrote:
This thread, while it started out back in 2017, heavily aligns with where I'm at in my journey right now. I've read through Mnemonica cover-to-cover, but haven't memorized the stack yet. I've also skimmed through Aronson's A Stack to Remember (and other books), but again, haven't memorized the stack. And no joke, but Redford's Sleightly Out of Order is sitting on my desk right in front of me.

My plan was to learn Mnemonica by the end of March of this year, but now I'm starting to wonder if Redford's stack might be better... for what it's worth, the majority of memdeck work I've seen has been fairly stack-independent. The more stack-dependent routines are often the tricks that can produce a pair or 4-of-a-kind, or deal a poker hand. I don't do a lot of those routines as it is, but if I have them at my disposal, I could practically do them impromptu.

Thanks to this thread, which has some pretty great info in it, now I think I'll read through Redford's book first and decide which stack I want to learn. I've already decided on Mnemonica over Aronson's, so we'll see.
If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend reading Temporarily Out of Order before Sleightly; though not strictly required, I think you'll get more out of both of them if you do it in that order.

For whatever it's worth, I only regularly perform one and a half stack-dependent tricks; the first is Redford's handling of Mike Close's Invisible Deck (which is made stronger with Redford stack's property that a red queen is at position 1 and position 27, but it's certainly possible and packs a massive punch with any stack), and the second is the entire routine Temporarily Out of Order which is five phases of increasing craziness.

With that said, being able to get into Redford/Mnemonica easily from NDO, and Redford stack's properties that make it easy to get into R/B, Stay, Tetradistic, etc. order, is really, really useful.

Even if I only use the corkscrew when I'm camping, I still prefer to bring a Swiss Army Knife.
Nikodemus
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One piece of advice I read somewhere on the Café -
if you want to create your own stack, choose a handful of effects that you really like, that require a setup. Then create your unique stack around those effects.
Renzel
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Very interesting will also be the upcoming "the particle system" by Joshua jay coming in the end of 2023. Joshua always has great ideas. I'm sure his system will have very inspirational new ideas.
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